Back in 1988, an outside group supporting George H.W. Bush ran an infamous ad tying Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis to Willie Horton, a convicted black man who had received a life sentence for murder but was to commit more crimes through a prisoner weekend release furlough program.

A new ad released Tuesday by vulnerable Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania’s 1st congressional district makes the Dukakis attack appear tame by comparison.

The ad is entitled “Uncle Phil,” but it is no Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reference. The first-term congressman invokes his late uncle, Philip Fitzpatrick, an NYPD officer killed in the line of duty in 1947 (16 years before Brian’s birth) as the inspiration for his own career as an FBI special agent.

But halfway through, the ad highlights a clip from a local Fox affiliate — citing a Fox News report — suggesting Fitzpatrick’s Democratic opponent, Scott Wallace, is “under fire” for “donations he made to a liberal organization that has given a voice to the convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

Fox News has deemed Democracy Now! to be “sympathetic” to Mumia Abu-Jamal, a radio journalist and co-founder of Philadelphia’s Black Panther Party who was convicted of murdering a police officer in 1982 and is currently serving a life sentence in prison. Their tenuous connection to Wallace is that his foundation gave millions of dollars to support the news program and the news program “gave platform at least 20 times” to Abu-Jamal.

Under this logic, Fox News must also be “sympathetic” to the people it has hosted repeatedly, like former Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and Dennis Kucinich (R-OH) . And a donor to ThinkProgress could be blamed for supporting Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) because it has frequentlyinterviewed him over the years. This is not, however, how journalism works.